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When the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in AD 312 he changed the course of European history in a way that continues to have repercussions to the present day. Adopting those aspects ofthe religion that suited his purposes, he truned Rome on a course from the relatively open, tolerant and pluralistic civilization of the Hellenistic world towards a culture based on the rule of fixed authority - whether that of the Bible, the writings of Ptolemy in astronomy, and of Galen and Hippocrates in medicine.